21 January 2020

Scattershots – 21jan20 (updated 27jan20)

George Rebane

RL Crabb is prominent in today’s (21jan20) Unionlambasting AB5, the latest socialist outrage from Sacramento. (more here) This piece of dreadful anti-work legislation has finally caught enough of our liberal artsy-fartsy crowd to also get them squawking – less known, AB5 impacts at least as many of California's high-tech STEM consultants and freelancers. Our cartoonist friend Bob Crabb’s distress (here) puts paid on what most of us have known about his true ideological colors – for shur he ain’t no middle-roader. Regardless of his ire against the state’s Democrats – it’s akin to my ire against the state’s Republicans, but I don’t pretend to be a mid-roader – he cannot countenance the other side, even in the face of AB5. “I also do not agree with those who want to steer clear of partisan politics. This bill is 100% Democrat. It was written by an assemblywoman who curses like a sailor and dismisses us as whiners who are too dense to understand how fortunate we are to have her party looking out for our well-being. It passed on a straight party line vote. It was signed by a governor who just dedicated millions of dollars to enforcing it. California Democrats believe they have little to fear from the riffraff at the bottom tier of workers. We are, after all, musicians, journalists, community theaters, and cartoonists. What are we going to do? Vote for Republicans? Ha ha ha!” As you can see, regardless of the years of collectivist crap flowing from our Democrat legislature, Bob would not change his vote to give us bottom tier riffraff a chance to sell our services as we choose – a few eggs have yet to be cracked and sacrifices have to be made.

California leavin’should be the title of a new musical lament for all those folks heading out of state. But there’s enough of us disgruntled Golden Staters to take and remake the places where we land and put down new stakes. An example is Star, Idaho, a small town near where one of our dear departed California expats and RR readers now lives. Star’s population has more than doubled in the last ten years as couples like JT and Mary Jo Turnipseed (their real name, honest!) left SoCal and moved in to experience small town living at its best. Well, no more. “Now Star is grappling with some of the same problems the Turnipseeds left California to escape. The town’s main drag, where ranchers once drove their cattle, is clogged with traffic during rush-hour commutes. Sprawling subdivisions have sprouted up around farmland, as have new chain stores. The median home price has more than doubled to nearly $400,000 since 2010.” (more here) The most amazing thing to me is still the utter blindness of our states overwhelming population of leftwing loonies who deny that any of this exodus is going on. It mirrors exactly their grossly distorted perception of the realworld which is their daily drink from the lamestream. For them, another sip of that Kool-Aid, and all’s right with the world.

[22jan20 update] Today at lunch with a longtime friend of, shall we say, a different socio-political persuasion, we discussed the “overwhelming” evidence which the Dems proclaimed to the nation in support of their case to convict President Trump of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’, and get him out of 1600 Pennsylvania before he trounces them at the polls this November. My friend strongly argued the prosecution’s call for additional witnesses and documents, with which to catalyze the evidence developed during the weeks of House impeachment hearings that, it now appears, did not overwhelm anyone and will not overwhelm anyone in the Senate chamber. The Dems’ evidence is essentially limp and ludicrous on arrival, and needs at least another fishing expedition launched to prop it up and give it some, any, substance before the president is summarily acquitted. But calling for witnesses is really a bluff by the Dems on which Majority Leader McConnell may well call Team Nancy and lead to a sanitary problem in multiple shorts. My prognosis is that the Dems will do nothing which results in any Biden taking the witness stand, let alone requiring Mr Lead Prosecutor Adam Schiff to also raise his hand and swear to tell the truth for a change.

[23jan20 update] The unmitigated hatred of Trump by our Left is on full display in ‘Time for Trump to go’ by local leftwinger Nancy Eubanks in the 23jan20 Union. There the newspaper gives the lady the entire prime-spot left panel to lambaste the president. And she does not hold back, spewing unsupported allegation after allegation and obvious lie after lie, all the while calling Trump the nation’s consummate liar whose lies average “over 10 times every day according to several nonpartisan fact checkers.” Has anyone ever asked how many lies about Trump come out daily from Team Nancy, the multitude of lamestream news outlets, the countless campuses across the country, the Dems’ impeachment brigade (Schiff’s speech yesterday on the Senate floor was a doozy - more here), and the entertainment media’s daily dose of films and TV programs??

[24jan20 update] Irrefutable proof that stupid is contagious. The Dems are proposing to make California’s horrendously stupid AB5 the law of the land. This proposal has now been endorsed by their top presidential candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg. Talk about a slate of ignorant?cynical anti-Americans wanting to become chief executive – they are all extreme leftwingers. Today this law is causing chaos in the state’s employment markets, and is even being opposed by liberals whose jobs are in peril or already history. In desperation the Sacramento stupidos are trying to do a workaround with a growing pile of special interest carve-outs before they accelerate California’s calamitous worker exodus, indigent immigrations, shrinking tax base, economic contraction, and most importantly, voter defections. (more here and here) Perhaps the passage of such destructive legislation, that is finally a shot into our socialists’ shorts, will help Republicans to launch a resurgence of sanity in California.

[27jan20 update] That Democrats are now the anti-American party is confirmed by three things which uniquely identify them – 1) ALL of them are willing to risk the US economy through massive tax increases to buy votes needed to stay in power through directed wealth redistribution – moderate Democrats are a myth, 2) NONE of them have any social policies save to remove President Trump from office before the November election (H/T to reader who posted the latest VDH piece on the topic), 3) ALL are globalists first, prepared and pursuing means to reduce US sovereignty and hegemony in favor of submitting to globalist organizations in economics, trade, governance, and world order.

Whether Trump's policies can permanently alter the course of The Machine is hard to say. There's a lotta inertia in these matters and for all I know the invasion of the Third World into the First and the ongoing destruction of traditional American culture and industry was baked into the cake. Most of the rest of everyday legislation, tax policy, fights over EPA standards on the margin, the 1000's of smallish regulations and laws, are ephemeral.

Even a levee built from young constitutionalist judges might have no effect if the underlying mass of people aren't themselves interested in the Constitution.

The main Lesson of Trump is more educational than anything I think. The overstrong position and political beliefs of MSM, internet monopolies, various identity groups, the nation's federal police and intelligence services, were all flung into the face of average schmoes for the first time. If everyone comes out of this with a more accurate idea of the philosophies and power of these other branches of government, well, that's enough.

Good points. Moving toward the parliamentary system? Just have the legislature hold a vote of no confidence, then hold a quick election, and get yourself a new government. Heck, have two elections per year to get want you demand. Now, to change the Constitution, you need 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the State Houses. 3/4 of the State Houses? Another reason to get rid of the Electoral College and move toward “democracy”. Heck, let’s get rid of the Senate while we are at it.
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Related to update

“Schiff was not telling the truth when he kept dripping out lies to compliant reporters. Because he helped them accomplish their political goals against their nemesis Trump, however, they have not held him accountable.”

re BillT 1141am - The casual reader of these pages should always note the absence of any progressives' comments on real issues facing Americans and Californians. They focus mostly on their 'hate Trump' campaign snark. And issues like California leavin' are vehemently denied since it illustrates most clearly the effects of their decades of socialist governance from Sacramento, and totally contradicts their narrative about what they have done to the Golden State.